


my soul is useless without you

by orphan_account



Series: bucky barnes' walk through hell [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Steve Rogers, BAMF Carol Danvers, Carol Danvers & Steve Rogers Friendship, Crime Boss Bucky Barnes, Feels, Getting Back Together, Hand Feeding, Healing, M/M, Mafia AU, Not Beta Read, Pet Names, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, kinda??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:41:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25492519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Bucky paced outside his office, Sam sitting against the door with his legs crossed."You're making it worse on yourself." Sam acknowledged from his spot on the floor."He's never gonna want to see me again." Bucky rubbed a hand over his face.+or, Bucky comes clean to Steve, about the mob, his feelings, and everything else.(title from Say Anything)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: bucky barnes' walk through hell [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793596
Comments: 9
Kudos: 123





	my soul is useless without you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson/gifts).



> dedicated to PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson because i ruined them with the last part.  
> hope you enjoy. <3

The good thing about being a part of New York's most elite crime syndicate, is that you have a number of people willing to help you at a moment's notice, even if it's to save their own ass.

The bad thing about being a part of New York's most elite crime syndicate, is that when your boss' boy toy gets assaulted by a local drug dealer, you can't exactly take him to the hospital and file a report. The police tended to stay out of the Commando's way, but that didn't mean they were on their side.

That's where Doc came in. He was a practicing family physician who had owed a substantial debt to Bucky's father before he died, and Bucky had wiped his debt clean in exchange for him being the group's doctor on retainer. He came in handy if someone was on the losing end of a knife fight, or when Bucky's not-boyfriend-boyfriend was brought to the office a bloodied, bruised mess. It wasn't honest, but the Board of Medicine could find out worse. He didn't give out opiates like Snickers bars on Halloween. Doc was a great doctor who happened to have a vice for gambling. At the end of the day, nothing stopped him from being a great doctor. Hippocratic oath, do no harm, and all that jazz.

Bucky paced outside his office, Sam sitting against the door with his legs crossed.

"You're making it worse on yourself." Sam acknowledged from his spot on the floor.

"He's never gonna want to see me again." Bucky rubbed a hand over his face.

"You don't know that."

"Sam, this is all my fault. I did this. I just wanted to protect him. He didn't ask for any of this." The short time he had spent with Steve had been the best he could have asked for, and now he felt like the whole thing was bursting into flames in front of him. He just wanted to take Steve home and kiss the devastatingly beautiful boy until he was whole again, but this was something Bucky couldn't fix. 

He had lied to Steve. Perfect, precious, Steve. Tiny and tattooed, he had intruded on Bucky's life in the best way. Now, Bucky had ruined everything. 

Fuck. What was he going to tell Carol?

"This isn't happening," Bucky slid down next to Sam and closed his eyes, "I'm just going to open my eyes and and none of this ever happened. My dad didn't leave me this shit. Becca and I just had normal fucking lives. I got an engineering degree."

Sam sighed. "Then you wouldn't have met Steve."

Bucky wrings his hands together, taking off his rings and sliding them into the pocket of shirt.

"And maybe that was for the best, Sam."

***

Doc finally comes out after the longest hour of Bucky's life, Sam and himself almost falling in the floor when the door opens.

"How is he?" Bucky asks quickly.

"More banged up than anything else. I don't think anything's broken, but bring him in after hours and we'll do some x-rays. I gave him a shot for pain, and another shot so the pain medicine doesn't make him nauseous." 

"You're a good man." Bucky wrapped an arm around Doc in a half-hug.

"As are you, Mr. Barnes. You take care of what's yours. Call me if you need anything or if Mr. Rogers doesn't have any improvement." Doc slid an amber bottle into Bucky's hands who nodded obediently. "Start these in six hours, one tablet every four hours. Keep the bandages dry and they can come off in twenty-four hours."

"Let me walk you out, Doc." Sam lead the older man away from Bucky's office, and Bucky hesitated with a hand on door before he went in.

He opened the door slowly, Steve was laying on his back on the couch with his eyes closed. When the creek of the door opening echoed through the office, he slowly opened his eyes and turned towards Bucky.

Bucky let himself into the office, locking the door behind him.

"Thought you'd be asleep from whatever the doctor gave you." He said, walking towards Steve carefully, placing the pill bottle on his desk.

"I'm on my way." Steve's shirt was open, and he had thick bandages from the top of his waist going up to his collar bones that covered up the tattoos on his torso. Bucky could just barely see the orchid that Steve had tattooed above his hip bone, 'SARAH' written underneath it.

Bucky knelt on the floor beside the couch, placing individual kisses to each of Steve's fingers on his right hand, lined with tiny dots and intricate line work. 

"Stevie... I'm so, so sorry, Stevie. You have no idea. I never, ever wanted anything to happen to you." A thin, black olive branch wrapped around Steve's thumb and Bucky held it gently against his lips.

"Why did you lie to me, Buck?"

"I thought I'd lose you. I wanted to protect you from this. You deserve.... God, Stevie, you deserve the whole world. I wanted to be the one to give it to you. When I met you, I knew that you deserved only the sweetest and kindest person, and I tried so hard to be that for you."

"You lied to me. That wasn't sweet, nor kind of you." Steve's voice was broken and pained, and it hurt Bucky more than anything.

"I lied to you BECAUSE I wanted to be sweet and kind for you. I thought... I don't know what the hell I thought," Bucky shook his head and rested it in his hands, elbows propped up next to Steve on the couch. 

"I guess I thought that if I was the doting boyfriend you deserved, you wouldn't be so taken aback by what I did. You'd look past what I did and see who I was. Sometimes, I feel like a monster. Whenever I was with you, I only ever felt like yours, Steve. I guess I wanted to create a version of myself that was just for you."

"So you were going to tell me the truth?" 

"I.... eventually." Bucky nodded, letting his elbows fall from the couch, and resting his head on his folded arms instead. "But I never, ever wanted this to happen. I just-"

Bucky's voice cracked and he felt tears he had been holding in all day fall.

"I just wanted to be perfect for you, Steve." Bucky let himself cry into his arms. He could only ever remember crying twice before, when each of his parents died. In Bucky's line of work, you desensitized quickly. Now, it felt like twenty years of emotion was falling out all at once.

He felt a gentle scratch to his scalp, and realized Steve was stroking his hair. 

"I can't stay awake, we'll talk later. Please, take me home."

So, Bucky did.

***

Steve had went back to sleep shortly after Bucky had got him back to Bucky's penthouse. Steve didn't specify which home he wanted to go to, and Bucky didn't want to let Steve out of his sight.

As the six hour mark rolled around, Bucky was peeling an orange in the kitchen when his phone alarm went off. After he silenced the alarm, he realized he had missed several notifications that he didn't want to deal with.

**Carol:**  
**we need to talk**

**Sam:**  
**I will accept whatever ass beating you give me.**

**Sam:**  
**might have spilled the beans about van gogh to danvers.**

He slid his phone across the kitchen counter, deciding this was a problem for later. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and the bowl of orange segments and went to his room.

Steve was asleep in the center of Bucky's bed, arms crossed over his own waist being the only part of him that looked relaxed. The pain relief was faltering before the drowsiness effect was.

"Time for more medicine, doll." Bucky carefully put his weight on the bed, trying not to disturb Steve. He ran a hand through the blonde's hair, avoiding the cut in his forehead Doc had expertly stitched up in the office.

Steve didn't open his eyes, but his tongue darted from between parted lips, retreating after Bucky placed the tablet on his tongue.

Bucky wrapped an arm behind Steve's shoulders, easing him to a sitting position and bringing the open water bottle to his lips. Steve drained half of it before he pulled his head away and Bucky put it back on the nightstand, capping it with one hand.

"Try to eat for me? It'll keep you from getting nauseous." Bucky reached for the bowl he had brought, keeping an arm around Steve to keep him supported.

Steve kept his eyes closed but let Bucky feed him the entire orange in segments. When he sighed and leaned against Bucky's shoulder, Bucky took that as a cue to lay him back down. 

"Buck?" Steve's eyes opened slightly.

"Right here, sweetheart. Nowhere else I'd rather be."

"We still have to talk about this." 

Bucky bit his lower lip and nodded, pressed a kiss to Steve's forehead and pulled the comforter back over him.

"We'll talk when you wake up."

Steve nodded, and let his eyes close again. Bucky grabbed the bowl and walked out, pulling the door softly behind him. He washed and dried the bowl, putting it back in the cabinet, then sighed at his phone sitting on the counter. Later had come.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Carol answered on the first ring.

"I'm sorry." She had no idea how sorry he was.

"We're all Steve has, James. You know that."

He did. Steve had told him about his dad dying before he was born, and his mom dying before he graduated art school. When he talked about Sarah, his eyes lit up with a love that couldn't be matched, even if they were filled with tears.

"You think I wanted this to happen?" Bucky kept his voice down, but he couldn't stop the agitation that crept in.

"I think you knew it was possible, that it could happen." Carol was tapping her fingers against something in the background in worry.

"Do you... Do you think he's going to leave me?" Bucky didn't want to think about it but the words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them. He thought he could hear Carol coo on the other end of the call.

"I don't know, Bucky."

***

Bucky took Steve to Doc's office first thing the next morning to get his x-rays and was relieved that nothing was broken. The ride there and back to Bucky's was painfully quiet, and Steve still hadn't spoken by the time they got back to the penthouse. Bucky couldn't take it anymore, and he dropped to his knees in front of where Steve was sitting on the couch.

"Please, please talk to me Stevie. I can't take it." He took Steve's smaller hand in both of us, but Steve pulled away.

"You haven't had a problem not telling me anything else." Steve's words were cold and painful, but Bucky knew they were true. 

"I swear, I wanted to tell you. I did. I just.. I just didn't want to lose you. Steven Grant, the last two months I have spent with you have been better than I deserve. YOU are better than I deserve, Stevie, and I know that. But, I still just want you."

Steve let out a deep sigh, and the way he flinched told Bucky it was the first deep breath he had taken since he had gotten drug through the alley.

"All I want from you, Buck, is honesty. You couldn't give me that."

"I know. I know, I hurt you. I hurt you in ways I never, ever wanted or intended to. I don't deserve it, but I need you to trust me when I say that all I ever wanted was to protect you, doll. I'm not worthy of another chance, but I'm begging you to give me one, Steve." Bucky let go of Steve's hand to brush his thumb against Steve's lips, pulling the lower one out from where Steve was biting it between his teeth.

"Then tell me everything you've been hiding."

At that, Bucky sang like a god damn canary in a coal mine. How his dad had only his family in mind when he and Howard started fixing fights, and that had branched out into providing protection for people from rival gangs. How what he did kept Bucky up at night, and the only thing that helped him was how much the Commando's gave back to the people of New York. How Bucky had fronted Carol's gallery opening.

"Were you just asking me out to dinner because you felt like I owed you?" 

"Not in the slightest. Stevie, I asked you out to dinner because I wanted you. I want you still. I think you're a gorgeous, talented, incredibly kind person. I know it was selfish of me to hide so much of myself from you, but I only wanted you for myself. I wanted to be whatever you needed."

Steve nodded, but stayed quiet, keeping his eyes locked on Bucky's.

"I, um... I'll take you back to your apartment if you want me to." Bucky didn't want to, but he would. To his suprise, Steve just shook his head.

"What do you want, Stevie? Whatever it is, I'll make it happen. If you want me to take you home and never see you again, I'll do it. I won't be happy about it, but I'll do it."

Steve brought a hand up to Bucky's jaw and traced his thumb over his cheekbone.

"I want you to be honest with me, Buck. I can't pretend like knowing you've killed people doesn't bother me." Bucky did not like where this was going. "But, I also can't pretend like I don't want to be yours. I can't pretend like I don't feel comfort and warmth with you that I've never felt with anyone else." He dropped his hand back into his lap. "So where do we go from here?"

"That's entirely up to you, kitten." Bucky kissed the knuckles on his hand. "How about this? No more lies. No more secrets between us. Anything that you need from me, I will give to you. I can't leave my men, but I will keep you as far away from that life as I can."

Steve thought for a moment, "No more secrets?"

Bucky nodded in agreement. "None."

"I think I might like you, Bucky."

Bucky smiled, "I know I like you, Stevie."

**Author's Note:**

> twitter is @acheyb0nes if you're into that


End file.
